


Breaking Waves

by LorenaMarquez (MariGrayson)



Category: Aquaman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: F/M, and there's a bunch of blackest night mentions, super outside of canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 06:08:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10633854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MariGrayson/pseuds/LorenaMarquez
Summary: Everyone came back but the person she thought deserved it the most. The resurrection of heroes wasn't a real resurrection without Aquaman's son. [Originally written for an underappreciated comic characters challenge on Wattpad and posted under aggressivekinetic]





	

Everyone came back but no one came back for her. In the middle of the chaos of all the long and recently dead heroes coming back to life, she realized that no one had come back to her. 

Arthur and Mera got the happy ending they deserved but Lorena hadn't. 

She couldn't deny that Arthur was like family to her now that she had spent so long with him but she missed her parents. She missed San Diego and her friends and her family and she missed Koryak. The one person who really understood her before it had all gone wrong. The two brown-skinned ocean dwellers in the middle of Atlantis that felt like they had found home when they recognized themselves in the other. 

And he was gone. And her parents were gone. And they were never coming back. Mera had Arthur and Arthur had Mera and she had herself. 

Lorena kicked at a rock, missing it by a centimeter, her toes skimming the surface of it and gliding through the water instead. Her sigh bubbled out and floated to the surface as a boat passed over head, throwing her into shadow. Perfect for the mood she was in. Lonely and alone at the edge of an ocean desert with nothing but rocks and the occasional fish to keep her company. Sub Diego was miles off, the few people who still breathed water living there wouldn't care how long she stayed out here and neither would Arthur. He and Mera were too happy to have each other back that they wouldn't notice how long she had been gone or even if she'd left.

The one consolation was that they were all outcasts now, stuck between two worlds in Sub Diego while they figured out their lives and now they had Jackson. Another person to commiserate with while they were away from home; all of them away from the only homes they had ever known. 

She curled in on herself as the boat passed overhead. It didn't stay long enough and her mood didn't pass with it. Her heart still ached when she thought about the people she had loved and lost and the boy she could have found a home in. And she was still at the edge of an ocean desert, alone and pitying herself. 

She kicked at another rock, managing to flip it over with a wave. The surrounding sand unsettled and resettled again as quickly as it had bloomed out into the water, swirling around the rock before it tucked itself underneath again. 

Then she floated. She was done with rocks. Not done being lonely but she was done with trying to flip rocks. Anything reminded her of Koryak after the wound had been opened again. Anything reminded her of Koryak after the wound had been opened again. Everything looked like his eyes. The brown strands of kelp and seaweed, shells of sea snails, the rocks flecked with gold and brown that she found at the edges of the kelp forest before the desert started. Those dark, warm brown eyes that knew what she was thinking before she had even acknowledged the thought. He understood who she was in Atlantis; a human that didn't quite fit with everyone else. One of the only people that looked like him and was stuck between the human world and Atlantis. Or in her case, Sub Diego. 

And his death was still fresh in her mind. Finding his body with Arthur hadn't been how she thought it would end. Not with someone as strong as Kory was. She knew Arthur had felt the same way and once he really knew where he was, when he and Mera had floated down from wherever they were, he would remember his son. 

 

♒️

 

She'd hid in the kelp forest. There was no reason for her to go back to Sub Diego when she was in a mood like this. There was nowhere for her to go to get out of it, she couldn't even visit his grave anymore. He wasn't there. His body had been taken by whoever had turned Arthur's body to water when he had died. His grave was nothing but symbolic now and looking at it didn't make her feel any better. It didn't make her feel any more at peace when she knew that Koryak wasn't at peace. 

She didn't know what the legends were like down here but she'd always felt that when the body wasn't at rest, the spirit wasn't at rest either. 

And it meant that her mind wasn't at rest while Koryak's body was gone. Probably never to return, too. 

Lorena swam lazily, barely curling her body through the strands of kelp and spears of sunlight that illuminated the green, turning it almost amber instead. Her breath bubbled around her as she swam, stuck in her wake, swirling around her before floating to the surface of the water like it always did. 

"Lorena!" Her name cut through the water, sharper than anything down here where everything was muffled and bubbling. Then softer, "Lorena, I saw you come out here earlier." Jackson. Come to find her, the other outcast in a found family of outcasts. She couldn't tell what direction it was coming from until she saw his dreads floating, almost suspended in the green-amber strands of kelp not far off. 

"I'm here, Jackson." His dreads were animated again, whipping around when he heard her and stopping again when he found her floating horizontal. 

"Hey," he stopped, not sure what to say. The pause lets the silence stretch between them as Lorena floated, her arms moving with the pull of the water. No matter how much time they spent together, the silence persisted; they were friends of a kind but Jackson wasn't willing to give himself up to the ocean yet. They still shared a laugh every once in a while, understanding things no one else could; two of the only teenagers left that understood each other in the seascape, their experiences bound them together even if Jackson wasn't ready to talk about everything yet. 

"I saw you come out here, uh – " he ran a hand through his hair and gave a sheepish laugh. "I said that already, huh? I just wanted to come check on you." 

The water pulled and pushed at her, rocking her in the way a mother rocks her child to sleep. She looked away from Jackson to look to the sun distorted through the water; out of everyone, he would be the one to understand that she came out here to feel sorry for herself. To lament a situation she couldn't do anything about while she pitied herself over someone else's death. 

She chewed on her lip and looked back at him, taking a deep breath and sighing it all out. 

"I'm just – I guess I'm out here feeling sorry for myself."

Jackson shrugged and joined her in floating horizontal. 

"Out of everyone, I think the two of us have a right to it." The water rocks them together, the two children she gained out of some strange circumstances that no one could have anticipated but the people behind it. 

She hummed in response and they sat in silence again. It was more comfortable this time, wrapping around them like a cocoon and protecting them from the outside world while they thought together. The shafts of sunlight start to slant as they sit there together, maybe an hour passing while they breathe and rock with the ocean in silence. 

And Lorena has to acknowledge that it's kind of hard to pity yourself when you're not sitting in silence alone, staring at rocks and kelp. It's easy to lose yourself in a companionable silence, looking at the ripples of a blue sky. 

Jackson was the first to break it, still looking at the sky as it turned to evening. 

"You still miss him?" It's not hard to guess who he's talking about. 

"Yeah, I do. You still miss your parents, right?" 

"Yeah – they'll come out on one of those visitation boats when they can." He said it definitively but it was still vague; they would come out eventually but there was no real way of knowing when. They floated for a little while more in the silence before they started back to Sub Diego through the kelp forest, encountering fish and debris on their way back. 

The city still hadn't quite cleaned up to the standards they had wanted to but it was hard when more than half your population started breathing air again.

Mera and Arthur were easy to find; after they had settled back into the city, they had started to make up for the years they'd lost to misunderstanding and other various unmentionables that Lorena hadn't been able to keep track of in the first place. They were always in the same place during the day, near the center of the city on a sunken bench, talking or sitting in silence. Enjoying each other's company and the company of whoever happened to be nearby, visibly happier than they had been in the time Lorena had known both of them. 

She and Jackson sat opposite the two, on the lip of a crumbling and cracked fountain base that had no use under the ocean. Maybe if it spit out bubbles it would be more interesting. Lorena's fingers gripped the edge of it, the concrete dust coating her finger tips as they said their 'hello's' and talked about nothing. 

"Where did the two of you wander off to today?" Her eyes seemed to shine softly, happiness radiating out of them into the darkening water. 

"The kelp forest," they answered in unison, smiling at each other with a laugh. 

Arthur smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners and let his hand cover Mera's knee. He still hadn't come down from where they had been the last few days; the reality of the situation hadn't quite crashed in yet, between trying to save the land from Mera's sister, coming back from the dead, and finding Jackson, he must have been reveling in the one happy thing that came from it all. She didn't want to be the one to remind them that Koryak didn't come back and that there's no reason he shouldn't have come back with the rest of the heroes; she didn't want to be the one to remind Arthur that his son was dead, not even while her own heart keened and called for him.

 

♒️

Lorena started hanging around Mera more after they'd taken the land back from the woman's sister; they talked about everything and nothing and sat in silence like she and Jackson did when there was nothing they needed to vocalize and when they just needed a little companionship. They all got lonely in Sub Diego.

They sat together, looking out across the city and the ocean beyond it, watching people come and go. Talking to each other, stopping to stare at them sometimes, looking to the sky when they felt like it. There was nothing to do down here but slowly, she could see the city coming back to life before their eyes. There were more Atlanteans now than Sub Diegoans but it didn't matter, people were people and Lorena could feel the pulse of the city again. 

Mera's green eyes followed everyone that swam past, occasionally alighting on Mal Rey when he had decided he needed to attend to business somewhere else in the city. Lorena couldn't count how many times they'd seen that whack man in one day but it needed to stop; even if Koryak had liked him, he was still a shark in the water, looking for whatever opportunity decided to open up. It made her suspicious. 

Another day and she was still missing Koryak; there was no end to the self pity she'd locked herself into. 

Their breath floated up and mingled at the surface as they sat and watched together. 

"Mera," she pressed her mouth closed, trying to decide if she should keep the words trapped in her throat or let them free into the currents. Mera's eyes were trained on Lorena, waiting. She rubbed her lips together, the friction guiding her decision. "Why didn't Koryak come back with everyone else?"

Mera's face lost its softness and lines of grief carved themselves into her face, turning her into a living statue. Her eyes wandered away from Lorena, finding purchase somewhere under them in the city but Lorena kept her eyes trained on Mera's face, waiting for whatever answer the queen could give her. 

"I don't know." Her lips were pressed together again, pursed. But it felt like there was an undercurrent to her words. Something left unsaid that Mera couldn't vocalize yet; her eyebrows drew together, deepening the lines on her forehead as her mouth pulled down. She looked like Lorena's mom had when she needed to tell her something difficult; it was usually something hard to say and even harder to hear. 

A thought you didn't want to put out in the open, news that you didn't want to be real, anything that left your heart beating an echo in your chest and a drumbeat in your ears. When her abuelo had passed away, her mom had the same look on her face. The same lines carved into her forehead and cheeks, the same mouth pulled down by whatever was weighing on her thoughts. 

Lorena breathed in, out. "What is it, Mera?"

Mera looked up to the sky and closed her eyes, remembering a buried piece of something that she looked like she didn't want to dig up. 

"Do you remember when Arthur died?" 

Lorena's head jerked. Did she remember it? "Why?" 

"There was – whatever it was that killed him," she closed her mouth, lips pressed against each other while she pulled it all together. "Whoever it was that killed him, they killed more than once. I can't tell you what makes me think this but they seemed confused." She paused again, the words caught in her throat. "It showed up after Koryak's body disappeared, Lorena. I heard that it looked like Arthur did after he transformed – " Mera was still struggling to find the words; she was trying to reach for them, pull them out of her throat and mind to tell the story. She sighed and released the tension in her shoulders but the lines of her face didn't smooth. 

"I thought that it might be him. Confused and alone, unsure and threatened."

Lorena eyed her. If she didn't know better, she would've thought that Mera had gone crazy. Koryak's body disappeared and brought back to life as a squid thing? She wouldn't have taken that seriously coming out of anyone else's mouth. 

Mera still wouldn't look at her, probably knowing how it made Lorena feel. Conflicted, angry, confused. Curious.

"What makes you think it was Kory? His body disappearing and this dude showing up could just be a coincidence." She waved her hand around and shook her head, her mouth opening and closing. There was nothing else she could say that wouldn't sound dismissive and Mera was still struggling with herself, she didn't want to make it worse. 

Anyway, hadn't she wanted him to come back? 

Mera shrugged. "It's nothing more than a feeling, really. Some circumstantial evidence that might not hold up." She finally looked over at the girl and took her in. Her shoulders were pulled up to her ears, eyes closed and face turned away. The edges of the rooftop started to crumble under Lorena's fingers. 

She reached out a hand and tried to sooth the angry hunch of Lorena's shoulders. Her fingers rubbed circles between the girl's shoulder blades. 

They sat in silence again; Mera didn't know what to say and Lorena couldn't find anything to say. Lorena let Mera's hand rest on her back, a warm spot in all of the cool. Eventually, Lorena turned into the other woman. Mera wrapped an arm around her, trying to ward off the thoughts that went around and around in Lorena's mind. A hurricane that couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop. 

"I'm sorry." 

"For what?" Lorena sniffed. 

Mera rubbed her shoulder. "Not telling you sooner." She took a breath. "Maybe for telling you at all." 

Lorena swiped at her nose. "I'm not mad. I just don't know what to do with it." She wanted to find him. Didn't want to find him. Wanted to forget that Mera had theorized anything because it hurt, knowing that she had a slim chance of finding him again. Getting to know each other like they should've been, instead of trying to do damage control on a destroyed city. Instead of getting killed in the middle of it all. If he'd been brought back to life, transformed into something new, there was no guarantee he'd be Koryak at all. And even if Mera's feelings were right, how would she even find him? The ocean was a big place. 

She squeezed her eyes shut again and focused on the feel of Mera's hand on her arm. 

"I'm not sorry because I thought you were mad, Lorena. I'm sorry because you're hurting still." Mera set her chin on top of the crown of brown hair. 

She nodded. There was no pain like the pain of what could have been. 

"How would I find him, Mera?" Her voice was a whispered rasp from a constricted throat. She pushed herself up, letting Mera's hand hang loosely on her elbow. 

"I don't know," she shook her head, at a loss. The sorcerers had little sway now and Arthur had never trusted them; many of them hadn't come to Sub Diego when Atlantis had been destroyed and without them, finding what Mera thought might be Koryak would be difficult. His transformation would have been the work of a sorcerer. 

"It would take a long time, Lorena. A lot of work." She pressed her lips together again. Lorena took her in. Her hand had dropped away from Lorena's arm and now both of them were curved over the edge of the building; she pressed her lips together and her brows were drawn tight over her eyes. The rippling sunlight played off of her crown and highlighted the gold in her eyes; even while thinking and struggling, Mera was beautiful. 

Lorena looked away and scuffed her heel against the building..

"And what if I do find him?" She was still quiet. "What if it isn't Koryak?"

Mera looked down, her profile a study in weariness. 

"Then at least you'll know, Lorena."


End file.
